Consumers are being encouraged to claim compensation for flight delays in the latest spam text craze.
Following accident and payment protection insurance claims, ‘anonymous’ text messages are now targeting anyone who has been subject to a flight delay in the last six years.
This follows the Court of Appeal ruling in favour of James Dawson over Thomson Airways last month, allowing delay claims up to six years old.
The text says: "As you have a 3 hour plus flight delay in the last six years. New EU regs say your entitled to £499.76 in cash. Reply DELAY to get it send out now."
Agents and operators on industry Facebook site, Travel Gossip called it ‘dark days’.
One said: "First we got spammy text messages about accident claims, then PPI claims, now it’s compensation for delayed flights."
"And the public moan, as to why airfares continue to increase!" commented another.
Airline trade body, British Air Transport Association, said it did not believe airlines had been inundated with compensation requests since the Huzar and Jet 2 and the Thomson and James Dawson ruling.
Thomson Airlines intends to appeal against the ruling to the Supreme Court.
In the Huzar ruling against Jet2.com last month, the Court of Appeal found airlines may no longer be able to use technical faults as a blanket excuse to avoid compensating passengers for flight delays.
Jet2.com’s application for appeal is being finalised and will be submitted to the Supreme Court before the deadline of Wednesday July 9.
